The Opinionated Bastard

John gets these numbers from 3 sources:

Iraqi Interior Ministry: 7430

Iraq Coalition Casualties: 7549

Iraq Body Count: 7557

How did I get these figures? First, from an AP story, we have this:

More than 7,000 Iraqis killed in violence in '05, official says By Sinan Sallaheddin, Associated Press | January 5, 2006

BAGHDAD -- More than 7,000 Iraqis, most of them civilians, were killed in violence in 2005, the first year that Iraqi officials have kept such records, an Interior Ministry official said yesterday.

The year 2005 saw 2,880 terrorist attacks target Iraqi security forces and civilians, Major Abdul Aziz al-Mousawi said. About 1,225 policemen and 475 soldiers were killed, along with 4,021 civilians and 1,709 insurgents, he said. Overall, 7,430 Iraqis were killed, according to the figures.

Article

Now, as you know, in August of 2005, about 1000 Iraqis were killed in a panic stampede that did not involve a terrorist attack. According to another report I found, the total of 7430 compiled by the Iraqi Interior Ministry did not include these people. That article in “The Age” (an Australian publication) said:

“The figures did not include more than 1000 people killed at a religious festival in Baghdad in August when panic over rumours of a suicide bomber provoked a stamped on a bridge.”

Article

So, excluding the 1000 killed in that stampede, the Iraqi Interior Ministry puts the total number of Iraqi deaths in 2005 at 7430.

Another source of information is “Iraq Coalition Casualties” (icasualties.org). They put the number of Iraqi deaths at 8514, but that number includes those killed in the panic stampede, which they list as 965. So, if you exclude the 965 killed in that stampede, the number is 7549.

Still another source is “Iraq Body Count” (iraqbodycount.org). They claim to track civilian casualties, but the truth is they track every documented death, which is easily verified by looking through their database (it clearly documents deaths of civilians, police, army and, I assume, insurgents). It's hard to do, but if you use that database to compute 2005 deaths, the maximum number comes to 8562 counting the stampede deaths (which they list as 1005) and 7557 excluding them.

So, once again, excluding the stampede deaths, here is how many Iraqi police, army, insurgents and civilians were killed in 2005:

Iraqi Interior Ministry: 7430

Iraq Coalition Casualties: 7514

Iraq Body Count: 7557

These values average almost exactly to 7500. The fact that these independent sources are in such close agreement suggests that the number is valid (though there are undoubtedly additional deaths that occur that are undocumented). This is important because one of these valid sources also tracked the number of Iraqi deaths that occurred in 2004. Iraq Body Count put the number at 10,109 (max) according to my calculations. Thus:

Iraqi deaths:

2004: 10,109

2005: 7500 (a 26% drop)

You documented this decrease in an earlier post, but it is worth noting the degree of agreement in the various sources of information. And this is also worth noting:

US Wounded (icasualties.org):

2004: 7989

2005: 5557 (a 30% drop)

Coalition deaths by hostile fire decreased by only 6% year to year, but the other indicators listed above show quite clearly that the insurgency is not gaining in strength. It is decreasing in strength.